The 2013/14 US News Rankings

This morning, US News and World Reports published their graduate school rankings. However, rather than report rankings based on the data they collected last fall, they decided (for the first time in history) to average data collected in 2008 and 2012 to generate many of the lists, including sociology.

students helping students.

As academics we know that the way that a class goes, how much students get out of a class, and their evaluation of the course or the material depends heavily on the students themselves. How much effort do they put in? Are they prepared to learn? Do they contribute to discussions and take the material […]

are you looking for this?

In scanning the recent search terms that have landed people at scatterplot, I think some readers might be gearing up for fall transitions (or hoping for future transitions) and are interested in finding: The current (and last year’s) sociology job market rumor mill/forum. Advice for assistant professors. Advice for your first time teaching. A thorough […]

families and the academy.

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a week now, ever since I saw a presentation by the ASA’s Director of Research – the venerable Roberta Spalter-Roth – at the Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN) Conference in New York City.* But, I just wasn’t sure where to start. Until today, when a colleague […]

a brave new world.

This weekend the NY Times ran a story on 32 innovations that will change your tomorrow. Some are cool, others are a little scary, and more than a few are completely unnecessary (e.g., a Jetson-esque machine exclusively for washing and drying your hair). This weekend I also got an email from a textbook publisher telling […]

delete your google browsing history while you still can.

The Daily Mail and Digital Journal offer step-by-step instructions (and the rationale) for deleting your history before March 1st. For those of you who haven’t seen it floating around Facebook (ht: Jenn, among others), here’s how you do it:

professors unplugged.

I just received my invitation to participate in the 4th Annual “Professors Unplugged.” While it sounds to me like it’s an evening of professors who have gone off the deep end, it’s also actually a talent show hosted by the College of First Year Studies – a forum for faculty to “showcase their talents that […]

every rose has its thorn

I know yesterday was Valentine’s Day, so this post might seem a bit late. But it’s Susan B. Anthony Day, which is as good a day as any to turn to the thorny relationship between women, love, and education. This past weekend, Stephanie Coontz wrote an encouraging opinion piece in the NY Times that asserts […]

humbling

It’s humbling to go to the library every once in a while. Standing in the stacks reminds you of all the things you don’t know – regardless of whether you think of these as the things you have left to learn, the things you’ll never know, or the things that others don’t know either so […]

relevant reading assignment.

This semester, I’m teaching the second iteration of a senior seminar I created last year. The class, Socialization and the Life Course, explores social influences on our lives from before birth to after death. The class was wildly successful last spring and it’s shaping up to be just as good – although quite different – […]

become a groups groupie.

This year I’m co-organizing the 24th Annual Group Processes Conference – a mini-conference that takes place the day before the ASA meetings in Denver. I know there are lots of options for pre-conference conferences, but I’m going to spend some time convincing you that this is the gathering to attend. Oddly enough, I’ll begin by telling […]

ask a scatterbrain: training grads in research ethics

One of the many wonderful sociologists I chatted with in Vegas was Iowa’s Mary Campbell, a loyal scatterplot reader. She asked me to pose a question to you (and I’m hoping in my post-Vegas/ASA/first-week-of-classes haze I remember its essence – if I don’t, I blame Andrew Perrin pushing appletinis at the bloggettogether): Apparently the University […]

email overload

Feeling bored because your inbox is at zero? Why not wade around in someone else’s?

trends in anonymous blogging.

Somehow – and much to my dismay, now that most of the day is behind me – I ended up tumbling down an internet rabbit hole today and venturing through blogs (and blog entries on still flourishing existing blogs) from yesteryear.* When I looked back at those blogs (and early entries here), there were so […]

socialization syllabus.

I’m constructing the syllabus for a new upper-level sociology class next semester, “Socialization and the Life Course.” As far as I can tell, there are two ways that I can structure it. The first is by institutions – the role of the family, schools, religion, media, work and occupations, etc. – in the “nurture” side […]